Comments

Comment by Davyjones

At a guess, I'd say as a new L80 your int should be around 1000 maybe 1400 after raiding a while.So 2% int off of 1000 is an extra 20 int, off of 1400 its an extra 28, not to mention the "bonus" 25 spellpower.

The beautiful thing about this gem, is it should automatically scale with the rest of your gear. Fair choice for all casters.

So yeah, that is what the thread says. Though, if you want to grab IED for mana, go ahead. Just remember there is such thing as too much mana regen, but there is no such thing as too much spell power.

Comment by karlww

Agreed, I'd say this is better for an arcane mage because:- we have comparatively poor crit bonuses, and low crit chance- we get plenty of benefits from intellect- easier to activate this

Comment by crescentwindx

For now, a Shadow Priest has a choice between this and the Chaotic Skyflare Diamond. They're almost equally good, as activating the Chaotic means you'll have to regem 2 red slots to blue. If you're a JC, this is a moot point since the Dragon's Eye cuts will fulfill the blue requirements for a CSD.

3.1 will change this, but for now it's really up to you.

Comment by Zipshysa

Davyjones is absolutely right about the gem scaling with gear, and it is a good choice for dps casters who can always use more spellpower, but not so much for everyone. An example below:

If a holy pally who stacks int -- and, hence, an abundance of yellow gems -- and has the IED has to have 2 other orange/purple/green gems to make the meta work wants the ESD instead, he has to regem for 3 red sockets as opposed to just one, sacrificing the int he was hoping to gain for the 2% bonus. If this holy pally was a JC, this wouldn't be an issue. In most cases, it's a tradeoff, really.

If you have over say, 1500 int unbuffed, this gem would be a good choice for this holy pally. It's a tough decision as the results of socketing this gem aren't clearly defined for a specific character at first glance.

Comment by caged

Raid buffed I have about 1850 intellect as a holy paladin and this STILL isn't as good as Insightful Earthsiege Diamond. After talents and kings, it's gives an additional 12 intellect along with the 25 spell power. But the proc on IED is worth about 55-65 MP5. With the recent changes to nerf Illumination and replenishment, MP5 (or any means of having/getting more mana) is a lot more important.

And as the poster stated above, it's going to require you to get rid of intellect gems and pick up intellect/SP orange gems. If you're gemming for Intellect as a holy paladin should be, the meta requirement actually ends up losing more intellect than you gain, even at extremely high levels of gear.

So, even with 1600+ intellect unbuffed, this meta is not good for holy paladins. Stick with Insightful Earthsiege Diamond.

Comment by Gilean82

If you're finishing boss fights with 20%+ mana (or whatever you feel comfortable with), get the Ember Skyflare. As has been stated before, it scales with your gear.

As a Resto Druid who used the Insightful along with Spirit stacking, mana has not been an issue since Naxx (when my gear was poor). Even in ICC the long and intensive boss fights do not push me where I feel I need to go back to the Insightful. I currently use the Ember Skyflare and love it. For other classes it may be different, ymmv.

Comment by celia9779

Comment by Elfie83

you're an idiot. How do you figure you're better off with a @#$%ty 21 increase crit chance and a worthless 3% crit damage bonus? Unless you are criting all the time, which you aren't, a scaling stat gem for a class that benefits from increasing intellect (for SP, like arcane mages or balance druids) with give you a better NET increase in dps. 3% crit is neglible, even when you're hitting 5 digit dps or do you really think 20600 vs 20000 is gona make %^&* diff when a boss has 25M HP? What isn't neglible is the fact that 2% int usually means more than 21 crit as a rating for people geared in endgame gear, and an overall increase in your spell power which can result in, with high end gear, 3% increase damage regardless of a critical strike based off having optimal 2 runed cardinal rubies instead of a crappy sp/spirit gem, 25 SP and however much scaling SP u can gain from talents which increase int, then increase SP based off int. drop the theorycrafting bull#$%^. Just cause something looks good on paper doesn't mean it performs the same when real random factors come into play. Everyone ought to know critical strike is merely a chance, it's very much possible to have a 99% crit *chance* and never crit once, even though odds are in your favor. Having a meta that determines a boost in damage on a chance is foolish; it can lead to very instable dps. One fight u crit a ton and see that 3% boost working in your favor your dps will be a good 1000-1500+ higher than another fight were you aren't critting as much your dps will leave you wondering what you did wrong... Thats how chance mechanics work. Since most mages and moonkins are looking around 50% crit with full raid buffs, its a coin flip... Anyone favoring crit as a state over haste, as a caster, has their head up their ass anyways, and if you are properly geared for haste, you'll find stacking straight SP and having a meta that allows you to do this will give you the best real world results.

Comment by Elfie83

The explanation is fairly easy. 3% increased critical damage makes the pre-existing crit rating on your gear that much more useful. If we want to be really simplistic, we can just multiply your avg critical strike damage from a recent log parse by 103% and see the resulting difference in overall damage.

The idea is that 3% increased crit damage directly affects damage output (and does so more than 25sp will). Also, since it is a percentage value, it scales with gear.

WRONG, you can't break it down so simplistically when you are dealing with random situations. Take a good look at your critical strike breakdown in recount to be more proper, chances are for most spells it'll mirror your current crit, about 50/50 in a raid setting, some spells criting more from talents, others not criting as much as your listed crit %. Now take all your non-critical damage, whatever it may be and factor in the difference between the coefficients of SP (especially if your class has int boosting and sp based off %int talents) and then also factor that into your critical strikes. That is an ALL ACROSS THE BOARD increase to all your damage, critical or not. By realistic approach it'll be like having 2% increase in all damage, which is better than 3% increase from critical damage alone, unless u crit 100% of the time, which no one ever does... It's also not just a mere 25 sp. It allows you to socket all SP, more sp gained, and take huge advantage of other talents, which scale considerably with raid buffs like Blessing of Kings, Arcane Intellect and Gift of the Wild. IF you are of a class or spec that does not use these talents, then it's reasonable to say the crit chance and crit damage increase is better. IF you are an arcane mage or a boomkin, you'd be cheating yourself by not using ember for your meta.

Comment by Elfie83

At 1550 int it is really as easy as "49 sp vs 72 mp5".

your theory is wrong. You know why? Cause it turns a chance into a guarantee... seriously, chance means chance, not guarantee... go learn probabilities and statistics. There's a chance earth can implode on itself tomorrow, doesn't mean we should all be preparing for doomsday... further still, you are assuming someone is constantly casting during a fight. There's a lot of raid mechanics which CC people out of a fight or require that you hold off on casting while debuffed or whatever (like unchained magic) you need to factor these in as well. The guarantees are things like a solid increase in SP and mana pool, any scaling stat that goes with it, like crit chance and sp.Also, if you're a paladin, and you can't figure how to keep people alive and juggle regen with divine plea and CD management, you are worthless in any raid setting.

Comment by VengeanceHakkar

Does khan9983 strike anyone else as a complete idiot? The kind of guy that still lives with his mom and thinks Spiderman is real?

Comment by Rakum

As of 4.01, two days after the patch, this item appears to not be working.

Tooltip: +21 Int and +2% Maximum Mana.Requires 3 Red gems.

Testing on lvl80 Holy Pallie showed only the 21 Int element having any effect: